Loved First: The Freedom of Grace

In the name of the blessed Trinity, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen. We'll see you next time.

Somewhere along the way, every one of us learned the same lesson.

We learned it so early We cannot remember When and how it happened,

And we've learned it so well We mistake it for the truth About the universe,

Love, we learned,

Is paid out of our performance,

Be good. Be useful.

Be impressive. Be uncomplicated.

Perform well.

And you will be loved.

Fail,

and the love may be withheld.

We learn to organize our whole lives around this lesson.

We polish the parts of ourselves we show. We hide the parts we suspect would cost us.

And the church, God help us,

has too often preached it.

Clean yourself up and then,

God will love you.

For many years, researchers have been asking what happens when human beings are loved first,

versus what happens when love is rationed out as a reward.

I've taken interest in the results of this research over the years,

and the findings are not ambiguous.

Children who must earn affection learn to perform and to hide.

They grow anxious, brittle, and suspicious.

But the child who knows herself loved before she has done anything at all,

she is the one who grows brave.

The child who is certain of love is the child who is free to explore, to risk, to fail,

and who often returns,

The therapist Carl Rogers built a life working on this discovery.

He found that people don't tend to change any type of lasting change in order to be accepted.

But they are capable of changing when they already have been accepted.

Acceptance is not the prize for transformation We learn it's kind of like the

soil in which transformation grows,

And in case you're thinking that acceptance means approval,

You can let go of that There's a difference between acceptance And approval,

What is also fascinating Is that the research shows That our bodies keep score here,

People who feel they belong Are loved Live longer Heal faster And hope more,

Loneliness we are told wears on our mortality the same way of smoking and alcoholism.

We are, even at the neuron level, creatures built to be loved first.

This research is fascinating.

But we already know it.

We come here every week to hear it again.

And we happen today to have a passage from the scripture that is laser focused on it.

A truth about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that lit St. Paul on fire.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hear the tense. It's not strive for peace or let us try to have peace.

We have peace.

It's fascinating that we can see in the earliest manuscripts,

the scribes stumbling over this. Because there's one vowel in Greek that separates

we have peace from let us have peace.

And you can see in the manuscript, them trying to turn it over to let us have

peace. And they know that they can't do it.

But the church keeps trying to do it.

Yet we read in this passage through it,

that God's love,

is an announcement,

not an exhortation. That peace with God is not a project.

It's where we stand.

Through him, we have obtained access to his love, to his grace,

in which we stand, he says.

It's like,

standing in the sunlight.

You can't turn the sun off. You're just bathed in it.

And from that standing, suggests St. Paul.

We are able to move through life, no matter what comes our way.

He says, we are even able to move through sufferings.

And sufferings do produce an endurance of sorts.

It produces a character of sorts.

And it produces a hope of sorts.

For when you know you are already loved,

the power to work through even the hardest times,

is greater,

than without that love.

He's not saying that suffering is good for us,

He's saying that hope is possible In the hardest times,

Because this love has already been poured Take the word Poured Into our hearts,

By the Holy Spirit Not distilled as a drip Drip Drip.

But poured into our hearts by the Spirit.

And in case you've just missed everything I've said, he's suggesting, he says, he moves on.

Let me be clear. While we were still weak,

Christ died for those who are usually not that godly.

And then he gives this little example again, in case you've missed it,

somebody might die for a good person. I get that.

But God proves his love for us that while we were still in our weakness,

in our imperfection, in our inability to love in return,

God gave God's very self for us.

Not after we repented.

Not after our trajectory looked like it might be promising.

And notice it's not a private thing here. Us, we, the ungodly,

all of humanity,

rebels.

And right in the middle of this, what you might call rebellion of ours, God loves us.

And accepts us.

God doesn't look out to find that which is salvageable.

God comes for all.

So the researchers were right.

Human beings flourish,

when they are loved first and diminished when love is withheld for proof.

Which means that this lesson we learned at first is a lie.

And we can stop performing Stop competing with each other Stop hiding Stop the

exhausting project Of becoming lovable,

Stop thinking that other people Are unlovable.

Not because we've dropped standards or something like this, because Jesus is perfect love.

And the beauty of the cross is that while he was hanging there,

while we were at our worst and abandoned him.

He didn't say,

well, you've got something coming.

But rather, Father, forget them.

And here is the power. Here is, I believe, why we come here each and every week, time and time again.

We hear this message of love freely given at first because we know it frees us.

To leave here and to make a difference in the world.

It frees us to live here, to demand justice for every human being,

for every human being deserves to be treated,

as a child whom God loved from the first.

We are free to pray for and work for a transformed world Not because it's our responsibility,

But it's because we were created for it.

We are free to walk in the pathways that God created for us from before time.

To walk in the world with the love of Jesus.

We have peace with God.

Not the peace the world makes. Not a provisional peace.

But peace poured out upon us.

And we stand in the peace of God.

And the only thing that this peace asks of us this morning,

is one thing that we find so hard.

Stop trying to earn it.

Open out your hands. Receive what was given before you even asked for it.

While we were still imperfect, Sinners Christ in love died for us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The homily was offered by the Rev. Dr. R. Scott White.

Introductory and closing reflections were shared by the Rev. Amy Peterson.

Musical contributions were performed by Dr. Kevin Seal.

Sermon audio was prepared by Nanette Popa. Production was guided by Karen Marie Frederiksen